Faster than most humans could dream of, Tanya struck, her wind blades streaking towards his neck, aiming to separate his head from the rest of his body. No longer were her blades transparent, but instead were flaring with dark and pungent energies that seemed to make the world less by merely existing in it.

In response to her attack, Lukas projected weapons of his own. A pair of blades shaped exactly like the ones he had used back at the Crypt, only crafted out of the fire. Flame Transformation was something Arah was acutely gifted in. With its raw destructive power engraved into the blades, he intercepted Tanya’s blow by crossing them against the force she was bringing to bear against him.

Tanya’s eyes widened momentarily in surprise but she did not allow herself to falter. Her strike, an overhead blow that came down at an angle, continued unerringly to his neck while his own defense rose up to meet hers.

Lukas watched as their weapons swiftly closed into one another before they clashed, the edge of her flaring wind blade meeting the flats of his own pair and—

The darkness in them flickered.

—and became thin air, weaving across his defense and rejoining as soon as it had broken past the barrier.

Lukas threw himself back as the blade tore through the space his neck had occupied just a moment ago, the tip of the sword skimming so close to his throat that he could feel it on his skin as it passed. His dodge had left him momentarily off-balance and in the short amount of time it took him to regain his footing, Tanya was already on him.

Using the momentum of her missed strike to fuel her motion, she spun around in a full circle, her hair trailing behind her like a cape as she brought her blade up and over her head before driving it straight down towards his forehead.

Not bothering to block the strike, not after what happened last time, Lukas jumped back and unleashed a torrent of flames at her. Tanya’s blade found nothing but empty space before she quickly transformed it into a windshield. The torrent of flames slammed against it like a runaway truck hitting a runaway barrier, only to be redirected upwards, but the act left enough of a window for Lukas to throw two concussive blasts of pure force straight at her.

The deflection shield shattered like glass, pushing her back by several feet.

Meanwhile, the two titans— Arah and Ezzeron, faced off against each other in a clash of wills. To a neutral observer, it seemed like they were doing nothing but to Lukas, he could clearly see how both kami were doing their utmost to keep the other from swallowing the mana in the battle arena from being gobbled up by the other. There was always this pressure at the back of his mind that tried to hold him back, the constant nagging in his ears telling him that he would not be able to control his speed and his momentum. Impulses that wanted him to alter his path mid-attack, whispers that promised him an absolute defeat no matter what he did.

Arah’s flames burned arrogantly in response to that pressure. It told him that Fire never surrendered. If it couldn’t burn through, it would burn its way around it. Block its path and it would blaze somewhere else. Fire would always find a way.

Lukas was pretty sure that Tanya was also feeling something similar and yet, the exact opposite.

He saw Tanya slowly relax, the tense currents of wind around her slowing down. That hardly meant he was out of danger yet. Oh no, this was simply the intermission between gameplays. The period of transition of switching between combat styles.

The calm before the storm.

Which in Tanya’s case, was quite literal.

“I admit it has been quite some time since I’ve cut loose,” Tanya exclaimed, stretching her neck. “You won’t believe how trying it is to put my hair down. People are so…. Fragile.”

Yep. That was Tanya’s alter ego talking out loud. Ezzeron was a Wind-spirit of destruction, and motion was the chief attribute of wind. Whatever Tanya would be under its influence, restrained would not be one of them.

It only made him wonder just what else could she show him if he pushed her to greater heights.

Time would tell.

Tanya grinned at him and then vanished.

Lukas only had a split second before he spun to his left, narrowly avoiding a slash of cosmic proportions. Lukas was only able to notice the wide gash on the terrain for a split second before he was forced to duck and sidestep as Tanya brought her second slash like the wrath of a vengeful God. Lukas barely had enough time to even see the attack before he was forced to exude a wall of lifeforce.

And even that pushed him back by a single foot.

A small portion of his mind was still paying attention to how Tanya was slowly growing frustrated by the lack of successful strikes. Lukas absent-mindedly dodged the next five strikes, seeing the shift in her movements. It was almost subtle, but Tanya's strikes were slowly growing more powerful and destructive, compared to the almost surgical hits that she employed at the start of the fight.

"You know," Lukas taunted, "for someone that boasted about others being fragile, you have yet to make a successful hit."

Tanya arched an eyebrow. "Oh I'm sorry," Her right hand moved backward in an arc as a savage grin threatened to tear her face apart, "I didn't realize I was boring you. Let me try again."

Lukas felt her energy spike and—

Six waves of raw force smashed into him from six sides. It was only thanks to his quick thinking that he had pushed himself upward with a well-timed burst, as the region beneath his feet detonated with a massive explosion. Propelling himself with a blast of flames, Lukas pushed himself backward, as Tanya slashed his attack to shreds with one massive slash of wind.

Clearly, she had no qualms about using the full power of her kami.

It made Lukas think. The raw power of an unbound kami was terrifying. The only reason he himself was able to withstand that power was because of his own nature as an Anomaly. The Lostbelt Earth was fully capable of channeling all that power through its own equivalent of Ley Lines, something that had manifested within Lukas the moment he had gained access to Warmonger Protocol.

But these people… these Asukans were just normal fragile beings. For them to be able to not just withstand the sheer power, but also channel them out with such precision made him wonder, just how powerful and dominating the Shikigami Ritual was, that it allowed them to wield it as one would a surgical knife.

One might as well try to regulate an ocean with a water tap.

"Yeah," He exhaled, "I can see you are trying your best. Allow me to return the favor."

Pushing the floor beneath him, he launched himself forward, using Lifeforce to propel himself faster. He merged two spheres of pure force with flames and sent them hurling at Tanya. Just as expected, she slashed them head-on, causing them to explode into superheated flames right in her face, causing her to pull backward. Lukas took advantage of it, and rushed in, flames coating his hand, a layer of dense Lifeforce separating it from his skin. He saw Tanya hastily raise a wind barrier in reflex, but Lukas smashed a fire-coated fist against it, amplified several times with lifeforce.

The hit smashed through her barrier like a sledgehammer through a watermelon, flinging her back. Tanya rolled, skidded, and bruised her way across the terrain and finally came to a stop.

"Huh!" Lukas breathed, "that was easy."

And then Tanya rose up, almost like a puppet with invisible strings, raised her hands, and snarled.

There were no words to convey the sheer violence that followed. It didn't even register as sound. Instead, it was almost as if a wall of force had slammed into everywhere with extreme prejudice, a hammer of cosmic proportions so powerful that Lukas was left temporarily blind and deaf by it. Static permeated his vision by the time he was able to even begin recognizing color, Tanya was right in front of him.

Lukas was barely able to even understand what happened—

When a wind blade pierced into his stomach.